A Scream of Consciousness

One of the world’s most famous and beloved voices, Aprile Millo teams up with the marvelous young Canadian soprano Maria Vetere in a ravishing, hauntingly beautiful new Ave Maria, destined to become a classic. And 100% of all net proceeds from sales of the recording will benefit Hurricane Matthew Relief in Haiti.

When Peter Danish, the Classical Music Editor of BroadwayWorld.com, heard from the pastor of a local Haitian church that donations were down significantly because of the bad press surrounding the Red Cross and the Clinton Foundation’s work in Haiti, he contacted opera legend Aprile Millo with an idea.

He suggested Millo record a spiritual song, an AVE MARIA for the holidays, with 100% of the proceeds from the sale of the recording going to Hurricane relief. Millo, one of the world’s best-loved sopranos, known as “the high priestess of that old time operatic religion,” has had a career spanning 30 years on the world’s greatest operatic stages. Millo agreed and they went to work. “From the first time Peter played the song for me, the melody positively haunted me.” said Millo. Time was extremely short for a Xmas release, but Danish found everyone he reached out to gladly offered to help. And in just over three weeks from start to finish, AVE MARIA (For the Children of Haiti) was completed.

A GLOBAL VIRTUAL ORCHESTRA: Danish enlisted help of musician friends and in a little over two weeks over 20 musicians from 8 countries contributed their time and talents to the song: a choir in Venezuela, a string quartet in Israel, a cellist from Croatia, flutist from the Netherlands, Canada , Mexico, Ireland, Latvia and the list goes on! It has gone global with everyone performing their parts and then emailing the tracks to Danish in New York for the final mix. Danish turned to master engineer Frank D. Fagnano to handle the mixing and mastering, and Fagnano wove together dozens of parts into a ravishing mosaic.

“The out-pouring of offers was completely overwhelming!” said Danish. “The difficulty was that I hadn’t even written parts for all of these instruments. But we won’t turn anyone down that wants to help. It’s been crazy, but good crazy and for a great cause.”

The song, AVE MARIA holds a very special significance for the people of Haiti. “At holiday time, it’s especially important to remember those who are less fortunate than us. Think about the kind of Christmas the children of Haiti are going to have this year,” said Dordy Joseph, of the Church of God, in Nyack, NY. “We at Nyack Church of God are thrilled that Aprile Millo, Maria Vetere and Peter Danish have given so unselfishly of their time to help the kids. Every little bit helps.”